The new expansion for Hearthstone is launching next week. There's been a lot of things being done to prepare for its release. The latest is the release of Patch 23.0.
This newest patch brings with it updates to Battlegrounds, Mercenaries, Duels, and Arena. Of course, there are the usual bug fixes and balancing changes. For the Voyage to the Sunken City expansion, the official card library showing the 135 new cards is now up.
Once the new expansion goes live, Hearthstone officially starts the Year of the Hydra. That means cards from Year of the Phoenix rotate out of Standard. In addition, some of the cards from the Core Set will be replaced. Learn more about the changes that come with the new Hearthstone year here.
Wild Gets Wilder
Over the years, some of the balancing changes made to the cards were considered too powerful in Standard. However, they weren't necessarily that strong when it came to the Wild. Several cards had their balancing changes reverted before they rotate into Wild with the arrival of the new expansion next week.
Change in Mercenaries
One change for Mercenaries in Patch 23.0 is that finishing one task in a Mercenary’s Task progression now automatically moves the player on to the next task in that Mercenary’s progression. Players can continue that Mercenary’s Task progression until they have completed all tasks for that Mercenary.
This particular change also means that the appearance rate of the Mysterious Stranger is reduced. That’s because the Mysterious Stranger was designed to give players more tasks. He’s still going to appear every now and then so players can get more tasks if they abandon a task or finish a Mercenary’s Task progression. In addition, players can still get random new tasks if they leave any normal task slots open for the daily task refresh.
Overall, the objective of this system update is to allow players more of the tasks that they want while letting them explore more engaging gameplay patterns. Hopefully, the new system marks an improvement for players who want to progress specific Mercenaries or those who are always looking for the next task to complete.
Check out the complete patch notes here. Hearthstone is available on PC, Android, and iOS.
